The Sermon Part 2

I’m a man of many names.

Father Shenanigans,

Ernest Henry,

Christ Michael,

Sergeant Jacobs,

Thomas Edison,

I’ve been in existence too long.

I know you well,

But I know you by other names.

You don’t even remember

that you are a fallen angel, 

do you?

We did some pretty wild things

back then,

Things I can’t mention here.

Do you know how long you’ve slept?

Eons. I almost gave up hope for you.

We had eons on either side of time,

past and future,

a linear scale,

where the negatives were just

weak replicas of ourselves.

I’m a vet, sergeant of the 7th division,

You can always tell marines apart,

they walk like they don’t give a shit.

If it's raining or hailing,

they'd still keep walking.

I pick out the old vets like me and

the younger generation marines—

They’re always good for a smoke or drink.

You like my nails?

I got them done here in town,

I like to support the local businesses.

Chinese lady did them.

Or maybe she was Vietnamese.

Something oriental.

She didn’t do exactly what I said,

I wanted a red, white, and blue stripe

on each nail.

Language barrier.

But the results are festive.

I’m a vet, got to support the troops.

This shows my patriotic devotion to

our country, and this state, even this city.

I love this shitty place, don’t you?

Fucking Santa Barbara—

what a sleepy place.

It needs to hear the wakeup call:

Wake the fuck up, Santa Barbara!

Don't worry,

I know those cops.

They aren’t so bad once you get to know them.

But never trust the quiet ones.

They listen with their big ears to the walls,

then squirrel that information for future use.

Is that half a cigarette by your feet?

I’ll smoke anything,

I don’t care.

I’m interchangeable, like Proteus.

Right now, I’m a snail, a turtle,

a crab-thing,

I carry my home with me, always.

Do you know how to protect yourself?

I’m talking about total incapacitation.

You have to kick them in the balls

and then head for the jugular.

You knock him out,

and don’t fucking let him get up.

Make sure that he’s down and stays down!

Then you carve your name into his skin.

Well, I guess not your real name—

That’ll get you caught.

Barister, Barister,

One coffee for a mister.

Look, I found one more messenger.

No more sleep for you sleepy angel,

now that I woke you up,

Nap time’s over.

Is that mocha for me?

I'm going to go get sugar packets.

I’m going to get all the sugar packets.

I know it’s already sweet—

I’m not fucking senile.

You can never have enough sweet.

Do you know what they say about

tall men roaming the earth?

Giants.

They're real.

Night walkers.

They’re real.

UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster—

They're all real.

You have to go back to the beginnings,

You have to, you have to—

Hey, I have an idea,

let’s go to Vegas.

Let’s plan it.

July 1st. Vegas.

We'll shoot pool and play roulette

and poker and craps.

Father Shenanigans and his messengers.

They’ll watch us drive down the Strip,

laughing at the fucking world.

In the beginning, in the garden of eden

Eve, my wife, ate the apple,

but god forgave us,

you don’t think he would have

barred his firstborn after one mistake?

I like apples,

Apples are wholesome and good for you.

That was not my doing,

not through my actions,

but the earth was.

I made the earth and its hollow.

The dinosaurs are hiding under the surface.

People think they went extinct

but they’re down there.

My time is almost up now.

And I’ll be going down to see them.

Look at the people walking

under the lights.

The streets are on fire at night

and no one knows that 

we are one power outage away

from eternal darkness.

The trouble is—the trouble is—

People get hard for disaster and chaos.

Before Sodom and Gomorrah fell into ruin,

before god smote them,

even on the brink of destruction

there were people who kept on

drinking

and partying

and worshiping their golden idols

and fucking,

because to face angry omnipotence,

to yell fuck you to the power wielder,

is the biggest high you can get—

it’s sexual energy and rage and joy.

That’s what it’s like to defy the gods.

I am man and entity.

Buddha only got it half right,

but he was mortal, the sad fuck,

and prone to man’s imperfections.

I made learning.

And learning made me suffer.

And eons of suffering means that

each experience,

each death and loss,

is like stabbing yourself with a knife

over and over,

familiar

unbearable

all at the same time—

And that is god.